While hematopoietic stem cells have significant therapeutic potential, a limitation that has hindered their clinical use has been the difficulty associated with obtaining sufficient numbers of these cells. In particular, hematopoietic stem cells are resistant to maintenance, propagation, and expansion ex vivo. Another challenge to be overcome in order to further develop the use of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) as a therapeutic modality is the loss of multi-potency that can occur when these cells are cultured ex vivo.
There is currently a need for compositions and methods for the ex vivo maintenance, propagation, and expansion of HSCs that preserve the multi-potency and hematopoietic functionality of such cells.